Monthly Archives: April 2012

So, I guess first I should go back to 2011—particularly back to December.

Thank you to our lovely friends, Stacy of The Original Tribal Kitty and Leilah of awesome-sauce Lansing belly dance rak-stardom, who teamed up and hosted Kat and me for a workshop and showcase.

The workshop was FULL! Which is fantastic…even better, we were able to make it through the entire choreography in just two hours! Everyone did really well and as we ran through the piece a few times at the end, it looked amazing.

I guess the long and the short of it is…we want to say a big THANK YOU to our dance family members that came and participated, showed their support, and shared their artistry in the showcase. Thank you also to those new people that came. It is always a cool experience meeting these different faces and getting to share experiences with you. We came to teach, but, it’s always an opportunity for us to learn as well—maybe a different method of explaining something, or realizing that a small detail we don’t even think about, like what our feet are doing during a particular transition, is something that another person wants to know…all so valuable to me, and I know that I will file these snippets away and take them with me going forward as I interact with more people.

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The New Year brings all sorts of goodies.

Our first activities were a small gathering in Detroit, hosted by Abida Blaze of Blazing Bellydance, for Burners Without Borders. It’s always on our minds to expand our horizons and meet new people in the dance community…or communities, as it were. Everyone was very gracious and it was an illuminating experience. Our new flavor seemed to be well-received amongst the unfamiliar crowd.

The following day, Kat and I froze our—as a co-worker of mine says—“bunnies” off when we took a detour on the way to Ann Arbor and did a short photo shoot in the iced-over Belle Isle swampy forest…WORTH the torture-by-biting-wind-and-falling-in-icy-water we endured. Kat’s brother Jeff is an astounding photographer.

The Ann Arbor evening was spent with our Unveilies, Lunatic and Bohemian family members…not enough of the evening, as we had to run out before the show was over…but even just a few minutes is plenty to lift the soul. 🙂

As is everything in our journey, our performance in Ann Arbor was another learning experience.

We performed a new piece called “Werewolf”. Sounds like typical Raks Incendia fare, right? Not so much. It was—intentionally—softer than what we usual present. And—in our opinion—it sucked. Here is why: the concept was not well-developed enough; we lost interest in it about halfway through the song, but we had already spent over a month working on it, so we couldn’t justify scrapping it; we didn’t practice it hard enough. It was sloppy.

One of our beloved family members cared enough to be honest about it, too. You know who you are, and thank you so much! You have no idea how much it means for us to have your honesty. Mad respect, for you! Mad respect. 🙂

So, tail between our legs, we headed home…But hark? What is this song on the iPod? *cackles* That’s for us to know and for you to see sometime later this year…

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April Fool’s!

Best yet! Everyone really did an awesome job, completely and totally. The venue was perfect, the audience was alive and active, and our family really brought the A-game! The impersonations…I bow down. Fan-freaking-tastic. That is all.

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So, now what?

Welp, the next order of business is Tribal Revolution in June. We were drawn from the hat to perform in the Friday night show, and we thought it best to bring Heavy back for this performance. It’s a new audience and, to be honest, we still love performing that number so much that there was really no argument against it.

So, as we focus on developing our new concept (squee!), we will also focus on conditioning and continuing on the path to peak health.

Thank you again to everyone for being so delicious and wonderful and lovely. *humps all around*